Our View: UMass Dartmouth delivers an international delight to Fall River

UMass Dartmouth's investment in the cities of Fall River and New Bedford offers a much-needed boost to the cities outside of the main campus. The international program will be a welcome addition to the Fall River's downtown, making it a livelier place.

In a move that is being billed by University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Chancellor Divina Grossman as a “win-win” for the university and Fall River businesses, UMD announced Wednesday that it would be moving its international student program to its satellite campus in the Cherry & Webb building.

The move is expected to at first bring 100 students, faculty and staff downtown — and eventually grow to 250 students over the next few years. The program had outgrown its space on the Dartmouth campus, school officials said, and the Cherry & Webb space was being underutilized.

UMass Dartmouth already had a presence in the building, where it currently has a five-year lease through September 2017 for 15,000 square feet of space from the Fall River Office of Economic Development for continuing education, adult education and training programs, and has invested in new classrooms and modern technology.

With the university working with local businesses to accept the UMass DartmouthPass, which functions as a debit card for student food purchases, the program’s arrival in Fall River is expected to have a “great financial impact” on the downtown business climate, according to FROED Executive Vice President Kenneth Fiola Jr.

“UMass deserves a lot of credit for thinking creatively to address the needs of its international student base as well as the economic interests of downtown,” Fiola said.

That was the case in downtown New Bedford, where the College of Visual and Performing Arts gave a boost to small businesses. Small purchases are just a piece of the $518 million of economic activity that UMass Dartmouth generates for the SouthCoast, according to a recent study.

Under the plans announced Wednesday, the students would live on campus and be bused to the downtown Fall River satellite campus. While it will increase foot traffic and economic activity downtown, the move will also allow students a more authentic experience of American life than staying on the more insular Dartmouth campus would afford them. As UMass Dartmouth spokesman John Hoey said, “They will be located in the middle of an American city. They’re going to be experiencing America.”

UMass Dartmouth’s investment in the cities of Fall River and New Bedford offers a much-needed boost to the cities outside of the main campus. The international program will be a welcome addition to the Fall River’s downtown, making it a livelier place.